His first ever Burnley game saw him involved with matters off the field when the floodlights went out at Crewe in 2005 while his first Turf Moor game was the 2-0 win against Norwich in the 2006/07 season.

Tomorrow will be his ninth Burnley game in the Premier League with probably the most notable one coming at Chelsea two years ago when he played his part in upsetting their manager. Just the last two of the previous eight have been at home and that includes this season’s 3-2 win against Bournemouth at the beginning of December.

Overall, he’s been fine with us and sits fourth in RATE THE REF with a rating of 73.81 out of 100.

This season he’s refereed 22 games in domestic football with them all being in either the Premier League or the two cup competitions. In those games he’s given out 76 yellow cards and just the one red card. Of those yellows, there have been 38 to both home and away team players and the one player red carded was West Ham’s Aaron Cresswell for two yellow cards, neither of which were correct.

Atkinson’s last game was at Ewood Park last Sunday when Manchester United won through to the sixth round of the FA Cup in what proved to be Owen Coyle’s last game as Blackburn manager. Derrick Williams of Blackburn was yellow carded as were United’s Jesse Lingard and Ashley Young.

The assistant referees are Stephen Child (Kent) and Dave Bryan (Lincolnshire). The fourth official is Michael Oliver (Northumberland) who refereed our last away game at Watford.